The video games industry needs to make less games – Reader’s Feature

The recent waves of redundancies at many games companies have been the subject of much fevered discussion among gamers, and for all those directly affected I have nothing but sympathy. I do not work in the games industry, but my own employer has enacted layoffs over the years and it is always horrible to go through; even if you keep your job, it is enormously stressful and upsetting.

However, what no one seems to be addressing is this question: is the games industry simply too big? Consider these statistics. During its lifespan, the best-selling console of its era, the NES, had 1,395 officially licensed games, released from 1983-1995 (figures from Wikipedia). On average, that’s just over 100 games per year.

By contrast, the PlayStation 4, the best-selling console of the last generation, has 3,343 games, was available from 2013-2024. On average, that’s just over 300 games per year, around three times as many. (Outside the console space, figures are magnitudes higher – Steam has thousands of games released on it every year, as do mobile platforms, but since such a high percentage of these are shovelware, it’s harder to get a fair picture of ‘real’ games in these spaces.)

My point is: are we better off having so many more games than in the past, or would it not be better to return to a more manageable output? I’m not making a nostalgia-based argument here about quality as, personally, I think games today are better than they ever have been, but in terms of quantity, we simply don’t need so many.

Growing up as a gamer in the 1980s and 90s (yes, I’m old), it was possible to have a fair grasp of the major games worth playing year-on-year. Yet today, this is simply impossible – there are just too many games for any one person reasonably to play.

I would ask everyone reading this to consider their own situation. Looking at the backlog of games I have bought and not played, plus all the games available to me ‘free’ via subscription services, there’re at least 50 I can immediately identify that I would like to play, and would probably enjoy (Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, and many others) but know I will struggle to find the time to do so.

And I’m what might be called a ‘hardcore’ gamer, who plays games nearly every day. So, what is the value in having so many games available that I am – and you are – never going to play?

This is why I am arguing that it isn’t really a bad thing if the industry were to shrink even further. We don’t need so many games. Which means, therefore, that we don’t need so many games companies or people working for them.

I know that the opinion I have stated here may cause some outrage, but I find it interesting that this rarely happens in other areas. Compare the situation to, say, streaming platforms. I bet most people would agree that there are simply too many (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple+, Paramount+ etc.), producing more content than any one person needs.

If I were to suggest that many of these should close, I imagine few would shed any tears. Yet this, too, would mean redundancies, just as it does when movie studios, music companies or book publishers close down – which also produce the ‘entertainment’ you enjoy – but about which no one ever gets so upset. The truth is, industries rise and fall, grow and contract all the time. And while this is painful for those affected, if shrinking the games industry were to be managed decently and with support for those impacted, we would all benefit.

By reader Roger Stevens

he reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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